1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems; and, more particularly, to signal processing within such communication systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Data communication systems have been under continual development for many years. The primary goal within such communication systems is to transmit information successfully between devices. Generally, communications is made from a transmitter of a first communication device to a receiver of a second communication device via a communication pathway between the first and second communication devices that may include one or more communication links. A transmitter may suffer from performance degradation for a number of reasons. A transmitter may include a digital to analog converter (DAC) to perform conversion from the digital domain to the analog domain (e.g., to convert a discrete-time signal to a continuous-time signal suitable for transmission). Also, a transmitter may include a power amplifier (PA) to scale (e.g., amplify) a continuous-time signal output from a DAC. One or both of these components within a transmitter may suffer from distortion. For example, the output signal from a PA may suffer from 3rd order distortion.
The present art does not provide an adequate means by which degraded transmitter operation may be corrected. Some prior art has attempted to employ high-fidelity circuits that operate at high-speeds to observe the signals output from a transmitter, but such high-performance (e.g., high-fidelity and high-speed) components are relatively expensive. In addition, such high-performance components can be highly consumptive of power and require highly complex implementation.